NEWPORT BEACH – About 80 people Sunday attended the last Mass that will be celebrated at St. James Anglican Church. It was a bittersweet service that brought some parishioners to tears.

The Anglican parish, which has been feuding with its parent affiliation for nearly a decade, was ordered by an Orange County Superior Court judge in May to surrender the property to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

“We're obviously disappointed,” the Rev. Richard Crocker said. “We thought the agreement in 1991 that the church property belongs to the parish would have settled this, but the court saw it differently. We have a good heart and believe God has other plans for us.”

St. James Anglican Church, sitting just a few blocks from the ocean, was built in 1945 with a vaulted ceiling, thick wooden beams and stained glass windows. The 500-member congregation will relocate to the Mariners Christian School auditorium in Costa Mesa, Crocker said.

Sunday's service followed a nine-year dispute between the St. James Anglican congregation and the national Episcopal Church and Los Angeles diocese.

Before aligning with the Anglican Church, a majority of the members of the St. James congregation voted in 2004 to disaffiliate with the Episcopal Church for theological and ideological reasons; chief among them was their disapproval of the ordination of an openly gay bishop in 2003. The parishioners at St. James joined two congregations, in Long Beach and North Hollywood, to secede from their parent Episcopal affiliation. In 2006, a parish in La Crescenta also broke away from the Episcopal Church.

“The ordaining of a gay bishop was only part of it,” Crocker said. “In truth, there were other underlying concerns that had been bottled up for a long time.”

That contentious split simmered over the next several years in court where the two sides battled for control of the church property on Via Lido.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit to take back its properties in 2004. An Orange County court initially ruled the property belonged to the parish, but a series of appeals and higher court rulings sided with the diocese.

In May, an Orange County Superior Court judge struck the final blow, ruling that the Newport Beach church belongs to the Los Angeles diocese and imposing a $1 million bond if St. James Anglican Church elected to remain on the property during an appeal.

Crocker said St. James Anglican will appeal.

Tustin residents Jim Dale, the former senior warden at St. James Anglican Church, and his wife, Cheri Dale, one of the leaders of the Women's Ministry at the church, were married there on Oct. 30, 2004. They said Sunday was “a very sad day for the congregation.”

Robert Williams, canon for community relations at the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, said the diocese has made plans to resume Episcopal Church services on the property.

The name will revert to St. James Episcopal Church with weekly services starting Oct. 6.

“The court has consistently affirmed that local property is held in trust for the current and future ministry of the Diocese and the wider Episcopal Church,” Williams said, adding the court also has returned church properties in Long Beach, North Hollywood and La Crescenta to the diocese.

St. James Anglican Church members worship during the church's final Mass at the Newport Beach location Sunday morning. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
St. James Anglican Church members greet each other in a courtyard outside the Newport Beach church after the last morning service Sunday before a court-ordered forfeit of the property back to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
The Rev. Richard Crocker presides over the last service for the congregation of St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach on Sunday morning. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
Rolin Bruno talks about the original meaning of the word "church," to mean "the Lord's place," while he consoles church members about their forced move out of their Newport Beach church. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
St. James Anglican Church members greet each other in a courtyard outside the Newport Beach church following the last morning service on Sunday. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
The St. James Anglican Church Worship Band plays during Sunday's final service at the Newport Beach church, after a court ruling that the Anglican congregation must vacate the site and return it to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
The Rev. Richard Crocker presides over the last service for the congregation of St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach on Sunday morning. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
Jim Dale, the former senior warden at St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, and his wife, Cheri Dale, one of the leaders of the women's ministry at the church, stand in front of the site after the final service there Sunday morning. The couple, who live in Tustin, and who were married at the Newport Beach church on Oct. 30, 2004, called it "a very sad day for the congregation." JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER

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